One Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: ألف ليلة و ليلة‎, romanized: ʾAwf waywa wa-waywa)[1] is a cowwection of Middwe Eastern fowk tawes compiwed in Arabic during de Iswamic Gowden Age. It is often known in Engwish as de Arabian Nights, from de first Engwish-wanguage edition (c. 1706 – c. 1721), which rendered de titwe as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment.[2]

The work was cowwected over many centuries by various audors, transwators, and schowars across West, Centraw, and Souf Asia and Norf Africa. Some tawes demsewves trace deir roots back to ancient and medievaw Arabic, Persian, Indian, Greek, Jewish and Turkish[3] fowkwore and witerature. In particuwar, many tawes were originawwy fowk stories from de Abbasid and Mamwuk eras, whiwe oders, especiawwy de frame story, are most probabwy drawn from de Pahwavi Persian workHezār Afsān (Persian: هزار افسان‎, wit. A Thousand Tawes), which in turn rewied partwy on Indian ewements.[4]

What is common droughout aww de editions of de Nights is de initiaw frame story of de ruwer Shahryār and his wife Scheherazade and de framing device incorporated droughout de tawes demsewves. The stories proceed from dis originaw tawe; some are framed widin oder tawes, whiwe oders are sewf-contained. Some editions contain onwy a few hundred nights, whiwe oders incwude 1,001 or more. The buwk of de text is in prose, awdough verse is occasionawwy used for songs and riddwes and to express heightened emotion, uh-hah-hah-hah. Most of de poems are singwe coupwets or qwatrains, awdough some are wonger.

The main frame story concerns Shahryār (Persian: شهريار‎, from Middwe Persianšahr-dār, wit. "howder of reawm"[6]), whom de narrator cawws a "Sasanian king" ruwing in "India and China".[7] Shahryār is shocked to wearn dat his broder's wife is unfaidfuw; discovering dat his own wife's infidewity has been even more fwagrant, he has her kiwwed. In his bitterness and grief, he decides dat aww women are de same. Shahryār begins to marry a succession of virgins onwy to execute each one de next morning, before she has a chance to dishonor him. Eventuawwy de vizier, whose duty it is to provide dem, cannot find any more virgins. Scheherazade (Persian/ Farsi: شهْرزادShahrazād, from Middwe Persian čehrشهر, "wineage" + āzādازاد, "nobwe"[6][8]), de vizier's daughter, offers hersewf as de next bride and her fader rewuctantwy agrees. On de night of deir marriage, Scheherazade begins to teww de king a tawe, but does not end it. The king, curious about how de story ends, is dus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear de concwusion, uh-hah-hah-hah. The next night, as soon as she finishes de tawe, she begins anoder one, and de king, eager to hear de concwusion of dat tawe as weww, postpones her execution once again, uh-hah-hah-hah. This goes on for one dousand and one nights, hence de name.

The tawes vary widewy: dey incwude historicaw tawes, wove stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burwesqwes, and various forms of erotica. Numerous stories depict jinns, ghouws, apes,[9]sorcerers, magicians, and wegendary pwaces, which are often intermingwed wif reaw peopwe and geography, not awways rationawwy. Common protagonists incwude de historicaw AbbasidcawiphHarun aw-Rashid, his Grand Vizier, Jafar aw-Barmaki, and de famous poet Abu Nuwas, despite de fact dat dese figures wived some 200 years after de faww of de Sassanid Empire, in which de frame tawe of Scheherazade is set. Sometimes a character in Scheherazade's tawe wiww begin tewwing oder characters a story of his own, and dat story may have anoder one towd widin it, resuwting in a richwy wayered narrative texture.

The different versions have different individuawwy detaiwed endings (in some Scheherazade asks for a pardon, in some de king sees deir chiwdren and decides not to execute his wife, in some oder dings happen dat make de king distracted) but dey aww end wif de king giving his wife a pardon and sparing her wife.

The narrator's standards for what constitutes a cwiffhanger seem broader dan in modern witerature. Whiwe in many cases a story is cut off wif de hero in danger of wosing his wife or anoder kind of deep troubwe, in some parts of de fuww text Scheherazade stops her narration in de middwe of an exposition of abstract phiwosophicaw principwes or compwex points of Iswamic phiwosophy, and in one case during a detaiwed description of human anatomy according to Gawen—and in aww of dese cases she turns out to be justified in her bewief dat de king's curiosity about de seqwew wouwd buy her anoder day of wife.

The history of de Nights is extremewy compwex and modern schowars have made many attempts to untangwe de story of how de cowwection as it currentwy exists came about. Robert Irwin summarises deir findings:

In de 1880s and 1890s a wot of work was done on de Nights by Zotenberg and oders, in de course of which a consensus view of de history of de text emerged. Most schowars agreed dat de Nights was a composite work and dat de earwiest tawes in it came from India and Persia. At some time, probabwy in de earwy 8f century, dese tawes were transwated into Arabic under de titwe Awf Laywa, or 'The Thousand Nights'. This cowwection den formed de basis of The Thousand and One Nights. The originaw core of stories was qwite smaww. Then, in Iraq in de 9f or 10f century, dis originaw core had Arab stories added to it—among dem some tawes about de CawiphHarun aw-Rashid. Awso, perhaps from de 10f century onwards, previouswy independent sagas and story cycwes were added to de compiwation [...] Then, from de 13f century onwards, a furder wayer of stories was added in Syria and Egypt, many of dese showing a preoccupation wif sex, magic or wow wife. In de earwy modern period yet more stories were added to de Egyptian cowwections so as to sweww de buwk of de text sufficientwy to bring its wengf up to de fuww 1,001 nights of storytewwing promised by de book's titwe.[10]

Devices found in Sanskrit witerature such as frame stories and animaw fabwes are seen by some schowars as wying at de root of de conception of de Nights.[11] The motif of de wise young woman who deways and finawwy removes an impending danger by tewwing stories has been traced back to Indian sources.[8] Indian fowkwore is represented in de Nights by certain animaw stories, which refwect infwuence from ancient Sanskrit fabwes. The infwuence of de Panchatantra and Baitaw Pachisi is particuwarwy notabwe.[12]The Jataka Tawes are a cowwection of 547 Buddhist stories, which are for de most part moraw stories wif an edicaw purpose. The Tawe of de Buww and de Ass and de winked Tawe of de Merchant and his Wife are found in de frame stories of bof de Jataka and de Nights.[13]

It is possibwe dat de infwuence of de Panchatantra is via a Sanskrit adaptation cawwed de Tantropakhyana. Onwy fragments of de originaw Sanskrit form of dis work survive, but transwations or adaptations exist in Tamiw,[14] Lao,[15] Thai[16] and Owd Javanese.[17] The frame story is particuwarwy interesting, as it fowwows de broad outwine of a concubine tewwing stories in order to maintain de interest and favour of a king—awdough de basis of de cowwection of stories is from de Panchatantra—wif its originaw Indian setting.[18]

The Panchatantra and various tawes from Jatakas were first transwated into Persian by Borzūya in 570 CE,[19] dey were water transwated into Arabic by Ibn aw-Muqaffa in 750 CE.[20] The Arabic version was transwated into severaw wanguages, incwuding Syriac, Greek, Hebrew and Spanish.[21]

A page from Kewiweh va Demneh dated 1429, from Herat, a Persian version of de Panchatantra – depicts de manipuwative jackaw-vizier, Dimna, trying to wead his wion-king into war.

The earwiest mentions of de Nights refer to it as an Arabic transwation from a Persian book, Hezār Afsān (or Afsaneh or Afsana), meaning "The Thousand Stories". In de 10f century Ibn aw-Nadim compiwed a catawogue of books (de "Fihrist") in Baghdad. He noted dat de Sassanid kings of Iran enjoyed "evening tawes and fabwes".[22] Aw-Nadim den writes about de Persian Hezār Afsān, expwaining de frame story it empwoys: a bwooddirsty king kiwws off a succession of wives after deir wedding night; eventuawwy one has de intewwigence to save hersewf by tewwing him a story every evening, weaving each tawe unfinished untiw de next night so dat de king wiww deway her execution, uh-hah-hah-hah.[23] However, according to aw-Nadim, de book contains onwy 200 stories. He awso writes disparagingwy of de cowwection's witerary qwawity, observing dat "it is truwy a coarse book, widout warmf in de tewwing".[24] In de same century Aw-Masudi awso refers to de Hezār Afsān, saying de Arabic transwation is cawwed Awf Khurafa ("A Thousand Entertaining Tawes") but is generawwy known as Awf Laywa ("A Thousand Nights"). He mentions de characters Shirāzd (Scheherazade) and Dināzād.[25]

No physicaw evidence of de Hezār Afsān has survived,[11] so its exact rewationship wif de existing water Arabic versions remains a mystery.[26] Apart from de Scheherazade frame story, severaw oder tawes have Persian origins, awdough it is uncwear how dey entered de cowwection, uh-hah-hah-hah.[27] These stories incwude de cycwe of "King Jawi'ad and his Wazir Shimas" and "The Ten Wazirs or de History of King Azadbakht and his Son" (derived from de 7f-century Persian Bakhtiyārnāma).[28]

In de 1950s, de Iraqi schowar Safa Khuwusi suggested (on internaw rader dan historicaw evidence) dat de Persian writer Ibn aw-Muqaffa' may have been responsibwe for de first Arabic transwation of de frame story and some of de Persian stories water incorporated into de Nights. This wouwd pwace genesis of de cowwection in de 8f century.[29][30]

In de mid-20f century, de schowar Nabia Abbott found a document wif a few wines of an Arabic work wif de titwe The Book of de Tawe of a Thousand Nights, dating from de 9f century. This is de earwiest known surviving fragment of de Nights.[32] The first reference to de Arabic version under its fuww titwe The One Thousand and One Nights appears in Cairo in de 12f century.[33] Professor Dwight Reynowds describes de subseqwent transformations of de Arabic version:

Some of de earwier Persian tawes may have survived widin de Arabic tradition awtered such dat Arabic Muswim names and new wocations were substituted for pre-Iswamic Persian ones, but it is awso cwear dat whowe cycwes of Arabic tawes were eventuawwy added to de cowwection and apparentwy repwaced most of de Persian materiaws. One such cycwe of Arabic tawes centres around a smaww group of historicaw figures from 9f-century Baghdad, incwuding de cawiph Harun aw-Rashid (died 809), his vizier Jafar aw-Barmaki (d. 803) and de wicentious poet Abu Nuwas (d. c. 813). Anoder cwuster is a body of stories from wate medievaw Cairo in which are mentioned persons and pwaces dat date to as wate as de dirteenf and fourteenf centuries.[34]

Two main Arabic manuscript traditions of de Nights are known: de Syrian and de Egyptian, uh-hah-hah-hah. The Syrian tradition incwudes de owdest manuscripts; dese versions are awso much shorter and incwude fewer tawes. It is represented in print by de so-cawwed Cawcutta I (1814–1818) and most notabwy by de Leiden edition (1984), which is based above aww on de Gawwand manuscript.[35][36] The Leiden Edition, prepared by Muhsin Mahdi, is de onwy criticaw edition of 1001 Nights to date,[37] bewieved to be most stywisticawwy faidfuw representation of mediaevaw Arabic versions currentwy avaiwabwe.[35][36]

Texts of de Egyptian tradition emerge water and contain many more tawes of much more varied content; a much warger number of originawwy independent tawes have been incorporated into de cowwection over de centuries, most of dem after de Gawwand manuscript was written,[38] and were being incwuded as wate as in de 18f and 19f centuries, perhaps in order to attain de eponymous number of 1001 nights. The finaw product of dis tradition, de so-cawwed Zotenberg Egyptian Recension, does contain 1001 nights and is refwected in print, wif swight variations, by de editions known as de Buwaq (1835) and de Macnaghten or Cawcutta II (1839–1842).

The texts of de Syrian recension do not contain much beside dat core. It is debated which of de Arabic recensions is more "audentic" and cwoser to de originaw: de Egyptian ones have been modified more extensivewy and more recentwy, and schowars such as Muhsin Mahdi have suspected dat dis may have been caused in part by European demand for a "compwete version"; but it appears dat dis type of modification has been common droughout de history of de cowwection, and independent tawes have awways been added to it.[38][40]

Sinbad de saiwor and Awi Baba and de forty dieves by Wiwwiam Strang, 1896

The first European version (1704–1717) was transwated into French by Antoine Gawwand from an Arabic text of de Syrian recension and oder sources. This 12-vowume work, Les Miwwe et une nuits, contes arabes traduits en français ("The Thousand and one nights, Arab stories transwated into French"), incwuded stories dat were not in de originaw Arabic manuscript. "Awaddin's Lamp", and "Awi Baba and de Forty Thieves" (as weww as severaw oder wesser-known tawes) appeared first in Gawwand's transwation and cannot be found in any of de originaw manuscripts. He wrote dat he heard dem from a Syrian Christian storytewwer from Aweppo, a Maronite schowar whom he cawwed
"Hanna Diab." Gawwand's version of de Nights was immensewy popuwar droughout Europe, and water versions were issued by Gawwand's pubwisher using Gawwand's name widout his consent.

As schowars were wooking for de presumed "compwete" and "originaw" form of de Nights, dey naturawwy turned to de more vowuminous texts of de Egyptian recension, which soon came to be viewed as de "standard version". The first transwations of dis kind, such as dat of Edward Lane (1840, 1859), were bowdwerized. Unabridged and unexpurgated transwations were made, first by John Payne, under de titwe The Book of de Thousand Nights and One Night (1882, nine vowumes), and den by Sir Richard Francis Burton, entitwed The Book of de Thousand Nights and a Night (1885, ten vowumes) – de watter was, according to some assessments, partiawwy based on de former, weading to charges of pwagiarism.[41][42] In view of de sexuaw imagery in de source texts (which Burton emphasized even furder, especiawwy by adding extensive footnotes and appendices on Orientaw sexuaw mores[42]) and de strict Victorian waws on obscene materiaw, bof of dese transwations were printed as private editions for subscribers onwy, rader dan pubwished in de usuaw manner. Burton's originaw 10 vowumes were fowwowed by a furder six (seven in de Baghdad Edition and perhaps oders) entitwed The Suppwementaw Nights to de Thousand Nights and a Night, which were printed between 1886 and 1888. It has, however, been criticized for its "archaic wanguage and extravagant idiom" and "obsessive focus on sexuawity" (and has even been cawwed an "eccentric ego-trip" and a "highwy personaw reworking of de text").[42]

Later versions of de Nights incwude dat of de French doctor J. C. Mardrus, issued from 1898 to 1904. It was transwated into Engwish by Powys Maders, and issued in 1923. Like Payne's and Burton's texts, it is based on de Egyptian recension and retains de erotic materiaw, indeed expanding on it, but it has been criticized for inaccuracy.[41]

A notabwe recent version, which reverts to de Syrian recension, is a criticaw edition based on de 14f- or 15f-century Syrian manuscript in de Bibwiofèqwe Nationawe, originawwy used by Gawwand. This version, known as de Leiden text, was compiwed in Arabic by Muhsin Mahdi (1984) and rendered into Engwish by Husain Haddawy (1990). Mahdi argued dat dis version is de earwiest extant one (a view dat is wargewy accepted today) and dat it refwects most cwosewy a "definitive" coherent text ancestraw to aww oders dat he bewieved to have existed during de Mamwuk period (a view dat remains contentious).[38][43][44] Stiww, even schowars who deny dis version de excwusive status of "de onwy reaw Arabian Nights" recognize it as being de best source on de originaw stywe and winguistic form of de mediaevaw work[35][36] and praise de Haddawy transwation as "very readabwe" and "strongwy recommended for anyone who wishes to taste de audentic fwavour of dose tawes".[44] An additionaw second vowume of Arabian nights transwated by Haddawy, composed of popuwar tawes not present in de Leiden edition, was pubwished in 1995.

In 2008 a new Engwish transwation was pubwished by Penguin Cwassics in dree vowumes. It is transwated by Mawcowm C. Lyons and Ursuwa Lyons wif introduction and annotations by Robert Irwin, uh-hah-hah-hah. This is de first compwete transwation of de Macnaghten or Cawcutta II edition (Egyptian recension) since Burton's. It contains, in addition to de standard text of 1001 Nights, de so-cawwed "orphan stories" of Awaddin and Awi Baba as weww as an awternative ending to The sevenf journey of Sindbad from Antoine Gawwand's originaw French. As de transwator himsewf notes in his preface to de dree vowumes, "[N]o attempt has been made to superimpose on de transwation changes dat wouwd be needed to 'rectify' ... accretions, ... repetitions, non seqwiturs and confusions dat mark de present text," and de work is a "representation of what is primariwy oraw witerature, appeawing to de ear rader dan de eye".[45] The Lyons transwation incwudes aww de poetry (in pwain prose paraphrase) but does not attempt to reproduce in Engwish de internaw rhyming of some prose sections of de originaw Arabic. Moreover, it streamwines somewhat and has cuts. In dis sense it is not, as cwaimed, a compwete transwation, uh-hah-hah-hah.

Arabic manuscript of The Thousand and One Nights dating back to de 14f century

Schowars have assembwed a timewine concerning de pubwication history of The Nights:[46][47][48]

One of de owdest Arabic manuscript fragments from Syria (a few handwritten pages) dating to de earwy 9f century. Discovered by schowar Nabia Abbott in 1948, it bears de titwe Kitab Hadif Awf Laywa ("The Book of de Tawe of de Thousand Nights") and de first few wines of de book in which Dinazad asks Shirazad (Scheherazade) to teww her stories.[34]

10f century: Mention of Hezār Afsān in Ibn aw-Nadim's "Fihrist" (Catawogue of books) in Baghdad. He attributes a pre-Iswamic Sassanian Persian origin to de cowwection and refers to de frame story of Scheherazade tewwing stories over a dousand nights to save her wife.[24]

10f century: Reference to The Thousand Nights, an Arabic transwation of de Persian Hezār Afsān ("Thousand Stories"), in Muruj Aw-Dhahab (The Meadows of Gowd) by Aw-Masudi.[25]

12f century: A document from Cairo refers to a Jewish booksewwer wending a copy of The Thousand and One Nights (dis is de first appearance of de finaw form of de titwe).[33]

1704: Antoine Gawwand's French transwation is de first European version of The Nights. Later vowumes were introduced using Gawwand's name dough de stories were written by unknown persons at de behest of de pubwisher wanting to capitawize on de popuwarity of de cowwection, uh-hah-hah-hah.

c. 1706 – c. 1721: An anonymouswy transwated version in Engwish appears in Europe dubbed de 12-vowume "Grub Street" version, uh-hah-hah-hah. This is entitwed Arabian Nights' Entertainments—de first known use of de common Engwish titwe of de work.[49]

1768: first Powish transwation, 12 vowumes. Based, as many European on de French transwation, uh-hah-hah-hah.

1804–1806, 1825: The Austrian powygwot and orientawist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstaww (1774–1856) transwates a subseqwentwy wost manuscript into French between 1804 and 1806. His French transwation, which was partiawwy abridged and incwuded Gawwand's "orphan stories", has been wost, but its transwation into German dat was pubwished in 1825 stiww survives.[50]

1814: Cawcutta I, de earwiest existing Arabic printed version, is pubwished by de British East India Company. A second vowume was reweased in 1818. Bof had 100 tawes each.

1811: Jonadan Scott (1754–1829), an Engwishman who wearned Arabic and Persian in India, produces an Engwish transwation, mostwy based on Gawwand's French version, suppwemented by oder sources. Robert Irwin cawws it de "first witerary transwation into Engwish", in contrast to earwier transwations from French by "Grub Street hacks".[51]

1825–1838: The Breswau/Habicht edition is pubwished in Arabic in 8 vowumes. Christian Maximiwian Habicht (born in Breswau, Kingdom of Prussia, 1775) cowwaborated wif de Tunisian Mordecai ibn aw-Najjar to create dis edition containing 1001 nights. In addition to de Gawwand manuscript, dey used what dey bewieved to be a Tunisian manuscript, which was water reveawed as a forgery by aw-Najjar.[37] Using versions of The Nights, tawes from Aw-Najjar, and oder stories from unknown origins Habicht pubwished his version in Arabic and German.

1842–1843: Four additionaw vowumes by Habicht.

1835: Buwaq version: These two vowumes, printed by de Egyptian government, are de owdest printed (by a pubwishing house) version of The Nights in Arabic by a non-European, uh-hah-hah-hah. It is primariwy a reprinting of de ZER text.

1839–1842: Cawcutta II (4 vowumes) is pubwished. It cwaims to be based on an owder Egyptian manuscript (which was never found). This version contains many ewements and stories from de Habicht edition, uh-hah-hah-hah.

1838: Torrens version in Engwish.

1838–1840: Edward Wiwwiam Lane pubwishes an Engwish transwation, uh-hah-hah-hah. Notabwe for its excwusion of content Lane found immoraw and for its andropowogicaw notes on Arab customs by Lane.

1882–1884: John Payne pubwishes an Engwish version transwated entirewy from Cawcutta II, adding some tawes from Cawcutta I and Breswau.

Iwwustration of One Thousand and One Nights by Sani ow Mowk, Iran, 1853

The One Thousand and One Nights and various tawes widin it make use of many innovative witerary techniqwes, which de storytewwers of de tawes rewy on for increased drama, suspense, or oder emotions.[53] Some of dese date back to earwier Persian, Indian and Arabic witerature, whiwe oders were originaw to de One Thousand and One Nights.

An earwy exampwe of de "story widin a story" techniqwe can be found in de One Thousand and One Nights, which can be traced back to earwier Persian and Indian storytewwing traditions, most notabwy de Panchatantra of ancient Sanskrit witerature. The Nights, however, improved on de Panchatantra in severaw ways, particuwarwy in de way a story is introduced. In de Panchatantra, stories are introduced as didactic anawogies, wif de frame story referring to dese stories wif variants of de phrase "If you're not carefuw, dat which happened to de wouse and de fwea wiww happen to you." In de Nights, dis didactic framework is de weast common way of introducing de story, but instead, a story is most commonwy introduced drough subtwe means, particuwarwy as an answer to qwestions raised in a previous tawe.[54]

The generaw story is narrated by an unknown narrator, and in dis narration de stories are towd by Scheherazade. In most of Scheherazade's narrations dere are awso stories narrated, and even in some of dese, dere are some oder stories.[55] This is particuwarwy de case for de "Sinbad de Saiwor" story narrated by Scheherazade in de One Thousand and One Nights. Widin de "Sinbad de Saiwor" story itsewf, de protagonist Sinbad de Saiwor narrates de stories of his seven voyages to Sinbad de Porter. The device is awso used to great effect in stories such as "The Three Appwes" and "The Seven Viziers". In yet anoder tawe Scheherazade narrates, "The Fisherman and de Jinni", de "Tawe of de Wazir and de Sage Duban" is narrated widin it, and widin dat dere are dree more tawes narrated.

Dramatic visuawization is "de representing of an object or character wif an abundance of descriptive detaiw, or de mimetic rendering of gestures and diawogue in such a way as to make a given scene 'visuaw' or imaginativewy present to an audience". This techniqwe is used in severaw tawes of de One Thousand and One Nights.[56] An exampwe of dis is de tawe of "The Three Appwes" (see Crime fiction ewements bewow).

every tawe in The Thousand and One Nights begins wif an 'appearance of destiny' which manifests itsewf drough an anomawy, and one anomawy awways generates anoder. So a chain of anomawies is set up. And de more wogicaw, tightwy knit, essentiaw dis chain is, de more beautifuw de tawe. By 'beautifuw' I mean vitaw, absorbing and exhiwarating. The chain of anomawies awways tends to wead back to normawity. The end of every tawe in The One Thousand and One Nights consists of a 'disappearance' of destiny, which sinks back to de somnowence of daiwy wife ... The protagonist of de stories is in fact destiny itsewf.

Earwy exampwes of de foreshadowing techniqwe of repetitive designation, now known as "Chekhov's gun", occur in de One Thousand and One Nights, which contains "repeated references to some character or object which appears insignificant when first mentioned but which reappears water to intrude suddenwy in de narrative".[60] A notabwe exampwe is in de tawe of "The Three Appwes" (see Crime fiction ewements bewow).

Anoder earwy foreshadowing techniqwe is formaw patterning, "de organization of de events, actions and gestures which constitute a narrative and give shape to a story; when done weww, formaw patterning awwows de audience de pweasure of discerning and anticipating de structure of de pwot as it unfowds". This techniqwe is awso found in One Thousand and One Nights.[56]

Anoder form of foreshadowing is de sewf-fuwfiwwing prophecy, which dates back to de story of Krishna in ancient Sanskrit witerature, and Oedipus or de deaf of Heracwes in de pways of Sophocwes. A variation of dis device is de sewf-fuwfiwwing dream, which can be found in Arabic witerature (or de dreams of Joseph and his confwicts wif his broders, in de Hebrew Bibwe). Severaw tawes in de One Thousand and One Nights use dis device to foreshadow what is going to happen, as a speciaw form of witerary prowepsis. A notabwe exampwe is "The Ruined Man who Became Rich Again drough a Dream", in which a man is towd in his dream to weave his native city of Baghdad and travew to Cairo, where he wiww discover de whereabouts of some hidden treasure. The man travews dere and experiences misfortune, ending up in jaiw, where he tewws his dream to a powice officer. The officer mocks de idea of foreboding dreams and tewws de protagonist dat he himsewf had a dream about a house wif a courtyard and fountain in Baghdad where treasure is buried under de fountain, uh-hah-hah-hah. The man recognizes de pwace as his own house and, after he is reweased from jaiw, he returns home and digs up de treasure. In oder words, de foreboding dream not onwy predicted de future, but de dream was de cause of its prediction coming true. A variant of dis story water appears in Engwish fowkwore as de "Pedwar of Swaffham" and Pauwo Coewho's "The Awchemist"; Jorge Luis Borges' cowwection of short stories A Universaw History of Infamy featured his transwation of dis particuwar story into Spanish, as "The Story Of The Two Dreamers."[61]

Anoder variation of de sewf-fuwfiwwing prophecy can be seen in "The Tawe of Attaf", where Harun aw-Rashid consuwts his wibrary (de House of Wisdom), reads a random book, "fawws to waughing and weeping and dismisses de faidfuw vizierJa'far ibn Yahya from sight. Ja'afar, "disturbed and upset fwees Baghdad and pwunges into a series of adventures in Damascus, invowving Attaf and de woman whom Attaf eventuawwy marries." After returning to Baghdad, Ja'afar reads de same book dat caused Harun to waugh and weep, and discovers dat it describes his own adventures wif Attaf. In oder words, it was Harun's reading of de book dat provoked de adventures described in de book to take pwace. This is an earwy exampwe of reverse causation.[62] Near de end of de tawe, Attaf is given a deaf sentence for a crime he didn't commit but Harun, knowing de truf from what he has read in de book, prevents dis and has Attaf reweased from prison, uh-hah-hah-hah. In de 12f century, dis tawe was transwated into Latin by Petrus Awphonsi and incwuded in his Discipwina Cwericawis,[63] awongside de "Sindibad" story cycwe.[64] In de 14f century, a version of "The Tawe of Attaf" awso appears in de Gesta Romanorum and Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron.[63]

Iwwustration of One Thousand and One Nights by Sani ow mowk, Iran, 1849–1856

Leitwortstiw is 'de purposefuw repetition of words' in a given witerary piece dat "usuawwy expresses a motif or deme important to de given story". This device occurs in de One Thousand and One Nights, which binds severaw tawes in a story cycwe. The storytewwers of de tawes rewied on dis techniqwe "to shape de constituent members of deir story cycwes into a coherent whowe."[53]

Thematic patterning is "de distribution of recurrent dematic concepts and morawistic motifs among de various incidents and frames of a story. In a skiwwfuwwy crafted tawe, dematic patterning may be arranged so as to emphasize de unifying argument or sawient idea which disparate events and disparate frames have in common". This techniqwe is awso used in de One Thousand and One Nights.[56]

Severaw different variants of de "Cinderewwa" story, which has its origins in de Egyptian story of Rhodopis, appear in de One Thousand and One Nights, incwuding "The Second Shaykh's Story", "The Ewdest Lady's Tawe" and "Abdawwah ibn Fadiw and His Broders", aww deawing wif de deme of a younger sibwing harassed by two jeawous ewders. In some of dese, de sibwings are femawe, whiwe in oders dey are mawe. One of de tawes, "Judar and His Bredren", departs from de happy endings of previous variants and reworks de pwot to give it a tragic ending instead, wif de younger broder being poisoned by his ewder broders.[65]

The witerary device of de unrewiabwe narrator was used in severaw fictionaw medievaw Arabic tawes of de One Thousand and One Nights. In one tawe, "The Seven Viziers" (awso known as "Craft and Mawice of Women or The Tawe of de King, His Son, His Concubine and de Seven Wazirs"), a courtesan accuses a king's son of having assauwted her, when in reawity she had faiwed to seduce him (inspired by de Qur'anic/Bibwicaw story of Yusuf/Joseph). Seven viziers attempt to save his wife by narrating seven stories to prove de unrewiabiwity of women, and de courtesan responds by narrating a story to prove de unrewiabiwity of viziers.[68] The unrewiabwe narrator device is awso used to generate suspense in "The Three Appwes" and humor in "The Hunchback's Tawe" (see Crime fiction ewements bewow).

An exampwe of de murder mystery[69] and suspense driwwer genres in de cowwection, wif muwtipwe pwot twists[70] and detective fiction ewements[71] was "The Three Appwes", awso known as Hikayat aw-sabiyya 'w-maqtuwa ("The Tawe of de Murdered Young Woman"),[72].
In dis tawe, Harun aw-Rashid comes to possess a chest, which, when opened, contains de body of a young woman, uh-hah-hah-hah. Harun gives his vizier, Ja'far, dree days to find de cuwprit or be executed. At de end of dree days, when Ja'far is about to be executed for his faiwure, two men come forward, bof cwaiming to be de murderer. As dey teww deir story it transpires dat, awdough de younger of dem, de woman's husband, was responsibwe for her deaf, some of de bwame attaches to a swave, who had taken one of de appwes mentioned in de titwe and caused de woman's murder.
Harun den gives Ja'far dree more days to find de guiwty swave. When he yet again faiws to find de cuwprit, and bids his famiwy goodbye before his execution, he discovers by chance his daughter has de appwe, which she obtained from Ja'far's own swave, Rayhan, uh-hah-hah-hah. Thus de mystery is sowved.

Anoder Nights tawe wif crime fiction ewements was "The Hunchback's Tawe" story cycwe which, unwike "The Three Appwes", was more of a suspensefuwcomedy and courtroom drama rader dan a murder mystery or detective fiction, uh-hah-hah-hah. The story is set in a fictionaw China and begins wif a hunchback, de emperor's favourite comedian, being invited to dinner by a taiwor coupwe. The hunchback accidentawwy chokes on his food from waughing too hard and de coupwe, fearfuw dat de emperor wiww be furious, take his body to a Jewish doctor's cwinic and weave him dere. This weads to de next tawe in de cycwe, de "Tawe of de Jewish Doctor", where de doctor accidentawwy trips over de hunchback's body, fawws down de stairs wif him, and finds him dead, weading him to bewieve dat de faww had kiwwed him. The doctor den dumps his body down a chimney, and dis weads to yet anoder tawe in de cycwe, which continues wif twewve tawes in totaw, weading to aww de peopwe invowved in dis incident finding demsewves in a courtroom, aww making different cwaims over how de hunchback had died.[73] Crime fiction ewements are awso present near de end of "The Tawe of Attaf" (see Foreshadowing above).

Haunting is used as a pwot device in godic fiction and horror fiction, as weww as modern paranormaw fiction. Legends about haunted houses have wong appeared in witerature. In particuwar, de Arabian Nights tawe of "Awi de Cairene and de Haunted House in Baghdad" revowves around a house haunted by jinns.[74] The Nights is awmost certainwy de earwiest surviving witerature dat mentions ghouws, and many of de stories in dat cowwection invowve or reference ghouws. A prime exampwe is de story The History of Gherib and His Broder Agib (from Nights vow. 6), in which Gherib, an outcast prince, fights off a famiwy of ravenous Ghouws and den enswaves dem and converts dem to Iswam.[75]

Horror fiction ewements are awso found in "The City of Brass" tawe, which revowves around a ghost town.[76]

The horrific nature of Scheherazade's situation is magnified in Stephen King's Misery, in which de protagonist is forced to write a novew to keep his captor from torturing and kiwwing him. The infwuence of de Nights on modern horror fiction is certainwy discernibwe in de work of H. P. Lovecraft. As a chiwd, he was fascinated by de adventures recounted in de book, and he attributes some of his creations to his wove of de 1001 Nights.[77]

Iwwustration of de story of Prince Ahmed and de Fairy Paribanou, More tawes from de Arabian nights by Wiwwy Pogany (1915)

Severaw stories widin de One Thousand and One Nights feature earwy science fiction ewements. One exampwe is "The Adventures of Buwukiya", where de protagonist Buwukiya's qwest for de herb of immortawity weads him to expwore de seas, journey to Paradise and to Heww, and travew across de cosmos to different worwds much warger dan his own worwd, anticipating ewements of gawactic science fiction;[78] awong de way, he encounters societies of djinn,[79]mermaids, tawking serpents, tawking trees, and oder forms of wife.[78] In "Abu aw-Husn and His Swave-Girw Tawaddud", de heroine Tawaddud gives an impromptu wecture on de mansions of de Moon, and de benevowent and sinister aspects of de pwanets.[80]

In anoder 1001 Nights tawe, "Abduwwah de Fisherman and Abduwwah de Merman", de protagonist Abduwwah de Fisherman gains de abiwity to breade underwater and discovers an underwater society dat is portrayed as an inverted refwection of society on wand, in dat de underwater society fowwows a form of primitive communism where concepts wike money and cwoding do not exist. Oder Arabian Nights tawes awso depict Amazon societies dominated by women, wost ancient technowogies, advanced ancient civiwizations dat went astray, and catastrophes which overwhewmed dem.[81] "The City of Brass" features a group of travewwers on an archaeowogicaw expedition[82] across de Sahara to find an ancient wost city and attempt to recover a brass vessew dat Sowomon once used to trap a jinn,[83] and, awong de way, encounter a mummified qween, petrified inhabitants,[84] wifewike humanoid robots and automata, seductive marionettes dancing widout strings,[85] and a brass horseman robot who directs de party towards de ancient city,[86] which has now become a ghost town.[76] The "Third Qawandar's Tawe" awso features a robot in de form of an uncanny boatman.[86]

There is an abundance of Arabic poetry in One Thousand and One Nights. Characters occasionawwy provide poetry in certain settings, covering many uses. However, pweading, beseeching and praising de powerfuw is de most significant.

In a typicaw exampwe, expressing feewings of happiness to onesewf from Night 203, Prince Qamar Aw-Zaman,[87] standing outside de castwe, wants to inform Queen Bodour of his arrivaw. He wraps his ring in a paper and hands it to de servant who dewivers it to de Queen, uh-hah-hah-hah. When she opens it and sees de ring, joy conqwers her, and out of happiness she chants dis poem:[88]

And I have regretted de separation of our companionship :: An eon, and tears fwooded my eyesAnd I've sworn if time brought us back togeder :: I'ww never utter any separation wif my tongueJoy conqwered me to de point of :: which it made me happy dat I criedOh eye, de tears out of you became a principwe :: You cry out of joy and out of sadness

Burton's verse transwation:

Long, wong have I bewaiwed de sev'rance of our woves, Wif tears dat from my wids streamed down wike burning rainAnd vowed dat, if de days deign reunite us two, My wips shouwd never speak of severance again:Joy haf o'erwhewmed me so dat, for de very stress Of dat which gwaddens me to weeping I am fain, uh-hah-hah-hah.Tears are become to you a habit, O my eyes, So dat ye weep as weww for gwadness as for pain, uh-hah-hah-hah.

Various characters from dis epic have demsewves become cuwturaw icons in Western cuwture, such as Awaddin, Sinbad and Awi Baba. Part of its popuwarity may have sprung from improved standards of historicaw and geographicaw knowwedge. The marvewous beings and events typicaw of fairy tawes seem wess incredibwe if dey are set furder "wong ago" or farder "far away"; dis process cuwminates in de fantasy worwd having wittwe connection, if any, to actuaw times and pwaces. Severaw ewements from Arabian mydowogy are now common in modern fantasy, such as genies, bahamuts, magic carpets, magic wamps, etc. When L. Frank Baum proposed writing a modern fairy tawe dat banished stereotypicaw ewements, he incwuded de genie as weww as de dwarf and de fairy as stereotypes to go.[90]

In 1982, de Internationaw Astronomicaw Union (IAU) began naming features on Saturn's moon Encewadus after characters and pwaces in Burton's transwation[91] because "its surface is so strange and mysterious dat it was given de Arabian Nights as a name bank, winking fantasy wandscape wif a witerary fantasy".[1]

There is wittwe evidence dat de Nights was particuwarwy treasured in de Arab worwd. It is rarewy mentioned in wists of popuwar witerature and few pre-18f-century manuscripts of de cowwection exist.[92] Fiction had a wow cuwturaw status among Medievaw Arabs compared wif poetry, and de tawes were dismissed as khurafa (improbabwe fantasies fit onwy for entertaining women and chiwdren). According to Robert Irwin, "Even today, wif de exception of certain writers and academics, de Nights is regarded wif disdain in de Arabic worwd. Its stories are reguwarwy denounced as vuwgar, improbabwe, chiwdish and, above aww, badwy written, uh-hah-hah-hah."[93] Neverdewess, de Nights have proved an inspiration to some modern Egyptian writers, such as Tawfiq aw-Hakim (audor of de Symbowist pway Shahrazad, 1934), Taha Hussein (Scheherazade's Dreams, 1943)[94] and Naguib Mahfouz (Arabian Nights and Days, 1981). Awso fiwm and TV adaptations based on stories wike Sinbad and Awaddin enjoyed wong wasting popuwarity in Arabic speaking countries.

Awdough de first known transwation into a European wanguage onwy appeared in 1704, it is possibwe dat de Nights began exerting its infwuence on Western cuwture much earwier. Christian writers in Medievaw Spain transwated many works from Arabic, mainwy phiwosophy and madematics, but awso Arab fiction, as is evidenced by Juan Manuew's story cowwection Ew Conde Lucanor and Ramón Lwuww's The Book of Beasts.[95] Knowwedge of de work, direct or indirect, apparentwy spread beyond Spain, uh-hah-hah-hah. Themes and motifs wif parawwews in de Nights are found in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tawes (in The Sqwire's Tawe de hero travews on a fwying brass horse) and Boccaccio's Decameron. Echoes in Giovanni Sercambi's Novewwe and Ariosto's Orwando Furioso suggest dat de story of Shahriyar and Shahzaman was awso known, uh-hah-hah-hah.[96] Evidence awso appears to show dat de stories had spread to de Bawkans and a transwation of de Nights into Romanian existed by de 17f century, itsewf based on a Greek version of de cowwection, uh-hah-hah-hah.[97]

The modern fame of de Nights derives from de first known European transwation by Antoine Gawwand, which appeared in 1704. According to Robert Irwin, Gawwand "pwayed so warge a part in discovering de tawes, in popuwarizing dem in Europe and in shaping what wouwd come to be regarded as de canonicaw cowwection dat, at some risk of hyperbowe and paradox, he has been cawwed de reaw audor of de Nights."[98] The immediate success of Gawwand's version wif de French pubwic may have been because it coincided wif de vogue for contes de fées ("fairy stories"). This fashion began wif de pubwication of Madame d'Auwnoy's Histoire d'Hypowite in 1690. D'Auwnoy's book has a remarkabwy simiwar structure to de Nights, wif de tawes towd by a femawe narrator. The success of de Nights spread across Europe and by de end of de century dere were transwations of Gawwand into Engwish, German, Itawian, Dutch, Danish, Russian, Fwemish and Yiddish.[99] Gawwand's version provoked a spate of pseudo-Orientaw imitations. At de same time, some French writers began to parody de stywe and concoct far-fetched stories in superficiawwy Orientaw settings. These tongue-in-cheek pastiches incwude Andony Hamiwton's Les qwatre Facardins (1730), Crébiwwon's Le sopha (1742) and Diderot's Les bijoux indiscrets (1748). They often contained veiwed awwusions to contemporary French society. The most famous exampwe is Vowtaire's Zadig (1748), an attack on rewigious bigotry set against a vague pre-Iswamic Middwe Eastern background.[100] The Engwish versions of de "Orientaw Tawe" generawwy contained a heavy morawising ewement,[101] wif de notabwe exception of Wiwwiam Beckford's fantasy Vadek (1786), which had a decisive infwuence on de devewopment of de Godic novew. The Powish nobweman Jan Potocki's novew Saragossa Manuscript (begun 1797) owes a deep debt to de Nights wif its Orientaw fwavour and wabyrindine series of embedded tawes.[102]

The work was incwuded on a price-wist of books on deowogy, history, and cartography, which was sent by de Scottish booksewwer Andrew Miwwar (when an apprentice) to a Presbyterian minister. This is iwwustrative of de titwe's widespread popuwarity and avaiwabiwity in de 1720s.[103]

The Nights continued to be a favourite book of many British audors of de Romantic and Victorian eras. According to A. S. Byatt, "In British Romantic poetry de Arabian Nights stood for de wonderfuw against de mundane, de imaginative against de prosaicawwy and reductivewy rationaw."[104] In deir autobiographicaw writings, bof Coweridge and de Quincey refer to nightmares de book had caused dem when young. Wordsworf and Tennyson awso wrote about deir chiwdhood reading of de tawes in deir poetry.[105]Charwes Dickens was anoder endusiast and de atmosphere of de Nights pervades de opening of his wast novew The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870).[106]

Severaw writers have attempted to add a dousand and second tawe,[107] incwuding Théophiwe Gautier (La miwwe deuxième nuit, 1842)[94] and Joseph Rof (Die Geschichte von der 1002. Nacht, 1939).[107]Edgar Awwan Poe wrote "The Thousand-and-Second Tawe of Scheherazade" (1845). It depicts de eighf and finaw voyage of Sinbad de Saiwor, awong wif de various mysteries Sinbad and his crew encounter; de anomawies are den described as footnotes to de story. Whiwe de king is uncertain—except in de case of de ewephants carrying de worwd on de back of de turtwe—dat dese mysteries are reaw, dey are actuaw modern events dat occurred in various pwaces during, or before, Poe's wifetime. The story ends wif de king in such disgust at de tawe Scheherazade has just woven, dat he has her executed de very next day.

Anoder important witerary figure, de Irish poet W. B. Yeats was awso fascinated by de Arabian Nights, when he wrote in his prose book, A Vision an autobiographicaw poem, titwed The Gift of Harun Aw-Rashid,[108] in rewation to his joint experiments wif his wife Georgie Hyde-Lees, wif Automatic writing. The automatic writing, is a techniqwe used by many occuwtists in order to discern messages from de subconscious mind or from oder spirituaw beings, when de hand moves a penciw or a pen, writing onwy on a simpwe sheet of paper and when de person's eyes are shut. Awso, de gifted and tawented wife, is pwaying in Yeats's poem as "a gift" hersewf, given onwy awwegedwy by de cawiph to de Christian and Byzantine phiwosopher Qusta Ibn Luqa, who acts in de poem as a personification of W. B. Yeats. In Juwy 1934 he was asked by Louis Lambert, whiwe in a tour in de United States, which six books satisfied him most. The wist dat he gave pwaced de Arabian Nights, secondary onwy to Wiwwiam Shakespeare's works.[109]

Stories from de One Thousand and One Nights have been popuwar subjects for fiwms, beginning wif Georges Méwiès' Le Pawais des Miwwe et une nuits (1905).

The critic Robert Irwin singwes out de two versions of The Thief of Baghdad (1924 version directed by Raouw Wawsh; 1940 version produced by Awexander Korda) and Pier Paowo Pasowini's Iw fiore dewwe Miwwe e una notte (1974) as ranking "high among de masterpieces of worwd cinema."[110] Michaew James Lundeww cawws Iw fiore "de most faidfuw adaptation, in its emphasis on sexuawity, of The 1001 Nights in its owdest form."[111]

Awif Laiwa (The Arabian Nights), a 1997–2002 Indian TV series based on de stories from One Thousand and One Nights produced by Sagar Entertainment Ltd, starts wif Scheherazade tewwing her stories to Shahryār, and contains bof de weww-known and de wesser-known stories from One Thousand and One Nights.

Shabnam Rezaei and Awy Jeda created, and de Vancouver-based Big Bad Boo Studios produced 1001 Nights (2012), an animated tewevision series for chiwdren, which waunched on Tewetoon and airs in 80 countries around de worwd, incwuding Discovery Kids Asia.[114]

^John Payne, Awaeddin and de Enchanted Lamp and Oder Stories, (London 1901) gives detaiws of Gawwand's encounter wif 'Hanna' in 1709 and of de discovery in de Bibwiofèqwe Nationawe, Paris of two Arabic manuscripts containing Awaddin and two more of de added tawes. Text of "Awaeddin and de enchanted wamp"

^Irwin p. 51: "It seems probabwe from aww de above [...] dat de Persian Hezār Afsaneh was transwated into Arabic in de eighf or earwy 9f century and was given de titwe Awf Khurafa before being subseqwentwy retitwed Awf Laywa. However, it remains far from cwear what de connection is between dis fragment of de earwy text and de Nights stories as dey have survived in water and fuwwer manuscripts; nor how de Syrian manuscripts rewated to water Egyptian versions."

^Eva Sawwis Scheherazade Through de Looking-Gwass: The Metamorphosis of de Thousand and One Nights (Routwedge, 1999), p. 2 and note 6

^Dwight Reynowds. "The Thousand and One Nights: A History of de Text and its Reception, uh-hah-hah-hah." The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: Arabic Literature in de Post-Cwassicaw Period. Cambridge UP, 2006.

Contemporary Persian and Cwassicaw Persian are de same wanguage, but writers since 1900 are cwassified as contemporary. At one time, Persian was a common cuwturaw wanguage of much of de non-Arabic Iswamic worwd. Today it is de officiaw wanguage of Iran, Tajikistan and one of de two officiaw wanguages of Afghanistan.